


the wine-colored air breathing thoughts through your hair

by slashmania



Series: their love is just so Ludo [10]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dom Cobb NOT Being An Asshole, Exhaustion, I get the feeling that if Arthur and Eames had ALL the time in the world, M/M, Post-Inception, Streetlights, Wow, Yusuf is also helping out, accidentally trapped in Limbo, and build much cooler stuff in Limbo than Cobb and Mal, but seriously i never thought about what their interactions would be like after the inception, never thought I'd use that one!, no sandcastles in the sand, sorry once again a WIP, thats why I love this elevator scene because they're so awkward, they'd fall in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-01 10:30:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18798553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmania/pseuds/slashmania
Summary: "Mal and Cobb had fifty years to build an entire city while they were in Limbo," Arthur said. "It looks like we'll have to start from scratch and then wait for the timer to stop up above. Then we'll wake naturally."Or, Arthur and Eames get trapped in Limbo, and even though they didn't plan for it, they fall in love.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is a big fat note apologizing to everyone because I'm doing a massive edit of the chapters. The story isn't finished, I've not given up, but I am working with a AC joint sprain that I'm 1) using as justification for attempting fanfiction when I shouldn't and 2) and mostly typing with one hand.

When Cobb got the call he thought it was going to be like every other job he'd taken since Arthur had given him the idea to specialize in dreamshare accidents.

 _You know, since you've officially gotten yourself out of Limbo twice_.

It had been sound advice. After the success of Fischer's inception, there was an increase in dreamshare activity, which led to a larger number of unfortunate dreamers admitted to hospitals, or stabilized in dream dens, or featured on the morning news. Dreamshare may not have been recognized as more than high-tech espionage, the next step in white-collar crime, but now that Cobb had gone back home and sworn to not dream with a PASIV again, he first would only read about the problems or watch the news reports and think to himself _Yeah, Arthur was right. I_ _have gotten myself out of Limbo twice. Maybe I can take my experience and make it a thing._

So Cobb did make it a thing. Cobb created a brand new job for himself as PASIV use increased and more dreamersharers attempted their own inceptions, practiced their own extractions, and so on. With Saito's help, Cobb made a name for himself as the man to call if a dreamer couldn't wake.

* * *

"Are you kidding me? You were called in too?"

When Cobb had gotten to the hospital he'd done what was becoming routine now— he'd show his identification, he'd give written proof that he was the specialist called in by one or more doctors, or a department, to help treat the patients admitted through the ER.

"Are we going to snipe at each other in the elevator or are we going to visit the patients?"

Cobb retreated to the very back of the elevator, gesturing for Yusuf to enter. It seemed that they were going to the same place.

"I didn't know they'd call in for a chemist," Cobb commented.

"I've heard good things about the work you've done," Yusuf said. "Saito mentioned that the only thing that was missing for this sort of thing was a person to come in and check the Somnacin used in cases like these." 

"Like heavy sedation?" Cobb asked this without a single trace of irony.

"Heavy sedation, sure. But I'm also called in to identify what the inexperienced chemists might be mixing together to try and create particular effects."

There was a silence that wasn't even filled with elevator music. Just the _ding!_ sound that signaled the elevator passing another floor.

"So, how are the kids?" Yusuf said while shouldering a bag he was probably using to carry any materials he'd need.

Cobb cleared his throat. "Just fine. How about your..." and Cobb couldn't add anything to his question because he really didn't know if Yusuf had a family. Well, he was sure that he had a family at some point because it wasn't likely the chemist was created in a lab, but Cobb had been so wrapped up in his personal issues that he hadn't learned much about his team. So he lamely finished with, "How are your cats?"

Yusuf shrugged. "Thanks to you, my cats can have any cat toy they want."

"Glad to hear it."

The elevator finally reached their floor, the doors opened, and that line of conversation could be dropped once they exited.

* * *

Technically Cobb's client was the hospital. The hospital secured his services to care for the patient, usually a dreamsharer or unfortunate mark. So the information Cobb received about the patients was usually scant. He didn't get personal information; there were no names given, and no descriptions.

So after meeting with the doctors and nurses, after being led to the private room the patients had been set up in, Cobb and Yusuf maintained their professionalism till they were left in the room to begin their work.

That professionalism faded a bit once they both stood, one at the foot of each hospital bed, to look at their patients.

In one bed was Arthur. In the next was Eames.

They were still attached to the PASIV, the timer still running down, but it was still unsettling to find that the patients were people they knew and worked with in the past.

"...I'd say that this is ironic. Do you find this ironic?" Yusuf asked Cobb as he set his bag down in one of the chairs sitting near to Eames's hospital bed.

Cobb didn't even answer Yusuf. He moved closer to Arthur's hospital bed, examining Arthur's peaceful expression as he dreamed.

"How did this happen?" Cobb couldn't help but ask as he looked at his former point man. He looked at Eames. He looked just as peaceful as Arthur, sleeping away with a PASIV line still attached to his wrist.

"We don't figure out how it happened."

"I'll ask them how it happened later. I'll ask them when they wake up..."

* * *

They had woken up in the waves, and stumbled to some unrecognizable shore.

Suits soaked, the pair of dreamsharers shivered in the sunshine.

"Fuck dream symbolism," Arthur said.

"I won't argue with that," Eames said, pulling off his wet jacket, shaking it out once, then twice, till the material was completely dry.

The forger looked around at the landscape.

"So this is Limbo," Eames said. "It's underwhelming."

It was nothing but sea and shore, so far. It stretched much farther than it should or just seemed to because there was nothing else to get in its way— no buildings and no other features of the land.

"Mal and Cobb had fifty years to build an entire city while they were in Limbo," Arthur said. "It looks like we'll have to start from scratch and then wait for the timer to stop up above. Then we'll wake naturally."

It was unspoken that shooting themselves out of Limbo was out of the question due to the sedation required for the job. That this would require patience. An extremely long waiting game.

Arthur examined the landscape, that oddly blank horizon, and then with subtle tweaks and nudges, Arthur forced two things to appear; a road and a building that looked like a hotel.

"It’s good enough for now," Arthur was saying. "We don't have to play beach bums if we have to wait as long as Mal and Cobb. Let's take the road, hit the hotel, and plan how we'll handle the next fifty years together."

Arthur began to walk, trusting that Eames would follow after him. And it was true, he did.

"Oh, Arthur," Eames was saying, "you already dress like an older you. I'm sure there's not much to plan for that."

"Just shut up, Eames."

* * *

"This is nice."

Arthur paused as he was busy selecting keys, actual keys, not key cards, from little pegs on the wall behind the front desk that lacked a hotel employee. The hotel was completely empty of all employees. The only customers were Eames and himself.

"You could say what you really think of it, Eames."

Eames didn't say anything immediately. He glanced around the clean, but uninhabited lobby, took in the details and nodded to himself. "I think it reflects the great number of hotels you've been to. You ended up creating a hotel that didn't overtly mimic any one place you've ever visited, but the end result is a structure recognizable as a hotel, but lacking personality."

Arthur smiled just a little before saying with a touch of irony, "Thanks, that had to be the nicest way anyone has ever told me that I lack imagination." Arthur tossed Eames a set of keys. The forger caught them and looked at the little number attached to the key ring.

"Second floor," Eames noted. "No penthouse suites for us?"

Arthur had chosen his own pair of keys and walked returned to Eames's side. "Well, blame my years of working as Cobb's point man, but just in case something strange happens like the appearance of rogue projections who decide to trap us on the upper floors of this hotel and, I don't know, burn it down, or even changes in the structure of Limbo due to dreamed up natural disasters I'd like to be prepared to deal with it all. We could escape from the second floor if we had to."

"And maybe break our legs when we jump out the window."

"Or one of use could think up some way to get down without that happening. We'd have a few different options like using a rope, a zipline, or maybe a slide. If we didn't have time and had to try and jump, we could use something like an inflatable stunt bag to break our fall," Arthur suggested, saying the last few kind of ridiculous methods with a deadpan expression.

Eames attempted to be as serious as Arthur, nodding in agreement. "If it's possible, I'd prefer something that is easy to manifest out of nothing. And I've never actually used a zipline before, so you might have to show me what one looks like."

"I'll draw you some pictures," Arthur assured him, already turning towards the stairs that would lead to the upper levels. He paused and looked at a space a little further to the left of the stairs. The elevator hadn't been there a few seconds ago.

Instead of going to the stairs, Arthur walked to the elevator, Eames following after him again. "Can I trust that this elevator will work?"

Arthur pressed the 'up' button on the panel next to the closed elevator doors. "My designs are boring and a little unimaginative, not out-of-order. The elevator works. You should feel reassured that I know enough on the subject that I was able to create gravity on the second level of the Fischer job using only explosives and an elevator."

There was a small display which indicated the current level the elevator was on. It had steadily progressed from five to the ground floor.

There was a _ding!_ sound as the elevator reached the ground floor and the doors opened up for Arthur and Eames. Arthur entered the elevator first. Eames followed after, leaning against the wall as Arthur pressed the button for their floor.

Once the doors closed the elevator went up, passing the first floor without stopping, then reaching the second floor with another cheerful _ding!_ sound.

They exited. Eames checked the number on his keys, noticing that Arthur was walking in the same direction.

"We're living next door to each other," Eames said once they each reached their doors.

Arthur shrugged. "I took each of our keys from different hooks, so it shouldn't have given us rooms next to each other. But it didn't."

Because Arthur wasn't going to say that Limbo was doing it. The rooms would share a wall. Arthur and Eames would get some form of privacy and not have to sleep next to each other.

"I think we've missed out on a great '...and there was only one bed' opportunity."

Arthur couldn't help it. He rolled his eyes.

"This is Limbo, not fanfiction. If you suggest that we were ever roommates, I won't draw you that diagram of a zipline." But Arthur probably _would_ draw it for Eames. "I'm going to try and get some rest. Try and do the same, okay?"

Eames nodded and tried opening the door to his room. The key worked with no problems, Arthur's did as well. After offering quiet assurance about seeing each other later, they each entered their rooms and closed their doors.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said in the last chapter note, I'm editing stuff. I'm clearly combining shorter chapters or rearranging events so they make sense.

Cobb would never say it out loud, but he'd gotten used to some of the benefits of his new job. One being that if the patients he was asked to observe and assist actually had been admitted by someone who stuck around long enough to fill out some paperwork, that meant there was some form of documentation for Cobb to look at if those people happened to run off later and leave their friends behind.

"Whoever was working with Arthur and Eames gave use plenty of details," Yusuf commented as he reviewed his own copy of the paperwork. "Either those people are familiar with the compound or the chemist was one of the people who helped lift, carry, and transport."

Cobb had long since set down his copy. Even if he hadn't looked at it, he would have known that Arthur had Eames must have been given some type of sedative, that it was included in the compound for stability. Frankly the others had been lucky to not get trapped down in Limbo themselves, and ended up doing the right thing once they'd figured out the problem.

It didn't change the fact that Cobb really would have liked to have a face to face meeting with them. Mostly because they could give him important information about either Arthur or Eames's behavior before entering the dream, if anything they said or did while they were under had stood out.

And even though Cobb knew that both Arthur and Eames were extremely capable dreamsharers, each dangerous in their own right, he couldn't help but view their current state as helpless. It was tempting to blame the missing team members for what happened, but hell, he and Mal had fallen down to Limbo all by themselves because of their, his own need, really, to try and figure out how many levels there could be in a dream, and falling down to wash up on the shores of their subconscious.

Maybe it really was something Arthur or Eames did by accident?

"Our notes are identical," Cobb finally said, "but I'm sure you received the test results for the compound. Do you notice anything alarming? Anything that will prevent them from waking if we tried to give them the kick?"

Yusuf adjusted his glasses and read from another paper that had the results from a blood draw or a sample of the compound itself.

"There's a sedative, but it's fairly mild compared to the one I used for the Fischer job."

"Is there a chance that the effects of the sedative will wear off before the timer runs out?"

Because Cobb didn't have to say that the bigger problem, the issue that made both Arthur _and_ Eames stand up to Cobb on the first level when Fischer's sub-security attempted to rip them all to pieces, neither man willing to accept Cobb's explanations or reasoning for the increased sedation, the disappearance of their fail-safe of waking when they died. 

Arthur's fear of unstructured dreamspace. Eames's fear of finally waking up only to have his brain turn to scrambled egg.

"Give me a chance to work on it," Yusuf was saying as he went back to examining the notes. "The sedation, even this milder version, already will increase the duration of the dreams. I don't know yet if this formula left inner ear function intact...but I say we give it another fifteen minutes, then try to give one or the other the kick.”

If Cobb had a say in it, he'd choose Arthur. If Arthur wasn't addled, if he hadn't accepted Limbo as his new reality, the point man would be able to clear up some blank spots in the documentation. He could give Cobb the names and contact information of the team that dropped them both at the hospital. And if Arthur was in his right mind, he would probably like to be present so he could do what he did best in dreamshare- frighten the fuck out of inexperienced dreamers, putting the fear of Arthur into them, because even though dreamsharing could be a cutthroat job, and they could be sold out or killed since dream criminals were still criminals. But Arthur was one of the best point men in the business, and if he wanted to he could make or break a person's career if that person happened to disappoint him.

Or in this case let him and another well respected dreamsharer rot in Limbo.

Cobb didn't voice those opinions. He took note of the time remaining on the PASIV, doing some basic calculations, but really he'd be guessing considering the team members who filled out the forms hadn't included much information about their job (like whether it was an extraction or inception, or what was the full length of time the dream had originally been set for). Years could have passed already, and all Arthur and Eames would have been able to do is deal with it together.

And Cobb supposed that maybe that was the benefit. While Mal lost her grip on reality that far down, maybe Arthur and Eames could find a way to remember what their true reality was.

* * *

Before, as they'd walked to the hotel, Arthur and Eames had an important discussion.

Neither were certain how long it had taken them to get down to Limbo. Neither were certain how long the dream would last due to, what Arthur insisted on calling a "moderate amount of sedative" in the Somnacin.

"I wonder where we are?" Eames had asked, referring to their sleeping bodies in reality.

"I bet you a dollar we're in a hospital," Arthur suggested, offering his hand to Eames so they could shake on it.

They did.

Arthur would be pissed off to know that at that moment, that very moment when they were walking around their bare boned infinite dreamscape to reach shelter, that they hadn't even left the site of the extraction yet. That their teammates were only just waking up to find them unresponsive.

* * *

Though Arthur and Eames had known each other for years, sniped and argued over dream theory and work, but ultimately relied on each other because of mutual respect, their relationship in reality was progressing slowly.

They hadn't dated.

They hadn't spoken of feelings for each other.

If they were generous with the word, they could call themselves casual lovers and neither saw a need to change anything. It wasn't broken, so they didn't need to fix it.

Eames enjoyed the fact that being the best in his field meant that he got to work with Arthur often. They'd begun working jobs together mostly because of the convenience and higher pay, but they stayed in contact even when they weren't working. There was something very comforting in the knowledge that Arthur was a phone call away. That if Eames needed some help on a dicey job, all he'd have to do was call or text Arthur, and nine times out of ten, the point man would appear. They liked each other, they liked spending time together, but they would go off and live their own lives just as easily.

Arthur liked how easy it was to interact with Eames. Sure, they bickered and argued and made horrible jokes, but it was just how they behaved with each other. They'd behaved that way for almost as long as they'd known each other, and he supposed that when you knew a person for any significant length of time, you could refer to that connection broadly as a relationship. Maybe not a conventional one with love and hearts and roses, but Arthur could care less about love and hearts and roses. He liked Eames, he liked working with him, but considering taking Eames on a date, or introducing Eames to his mother, only made Arthur's frown deepen.

* * *

Later after Eames had put his foot down and demanded that Arthur keep a realistic work schedule and get more sleep, Arthur and Eames managed the landscape and structuring of Limbo together. But at first Arthur took it upon himself to get the basics taken care of, focusing on the little things that would allow them to experience the natural flow of time.

He didn't have to worry about adding something more complex like 'allowing them to be untouched by the physical toll of time.' Both understood that it was very likely that this could fail and they'd grow old and a little crazy if they relied on something like that. It was better to nip the cause of aging in Limbo right in the bud- as long as they knew they were in Limbo and didn't accept the environment as their reality, where they would live, grow old, and die, they should be fine.

They would remind each other of the truth. How they got there, how old they really were, what they did for a living, what they look like, and so on.

So Arthur would wake every morning before the sun rose, Eames hearing the point man's movements through the wall that separated their rooms. At first, Eames would poke his head out of his half-open door, Arthur would wave him away and suggest he get more sleep since it was still so dark.

At first, Arthur wouldn't bother Eames or ask him to come along with him to the beach. Arthur would slip out of his room and leave their hotel. He was only half-certain that the sun was rising at that time every morning because he'd wake up and go watch it happen, but he also wasn't comfortable with the idea of sleeping in and noticing that it hadn't risen because he wasn't there as a spectator. Because Arthur wasn't at the point of thinking that he was the one to control the development of _all_ things within this space- it started unstructured with only the ocean and the beach being there when both he and Eames arrived. Arthur still had the 'fuck dream symbolism' attitude as he walked through the sand.

But morning after morning, for a week straight according to the marks on Arthur's Days in Limbo Calendar, Arthur would sit in the sand, face the eastern horizon and watch the sun rise. He'd go outside and spot the sunset on an underdeveloped western horizon, brilliant gold, yellow, and red lighting up the west before the sun sank below the horizon, and the colors darkened to purple, blue, and black.

Sometimes Arthur would stay awake and make the stars blink into existence until they'd appear on their own once it was dark enough. He'd reach into his pocket and find a silver dollar, hold it up to the night sky and then pass one hand over it, palming the coin but leaving the moon in its place. He'd look up at the chilly, slightly silver tinged moon, and nod in satisfaction.

They had a sunrise and a sunset, both fantastic looking in Arthur's opinion. They could count the passing days and have something in nature that was more grounding. Dreamed up sunshine could provide dreamed up Vitamin D to battle any dreamed up Seasonal Affective Disorder.

And this punishing schedule continued until the evening Arthur knocked on Eames's door and asked him to make sure the sun would rise.

* * *

Eames opened the door and found Arthur attempting to not slump against the door frame.

He didn't succeed.

"Oh, pet," Eames said, noticing how exhausted Arthur looked. "You look dead on your feet."

"Can you please make sure that the sun goes up?"

It was nonsensical, but it was late and he'd also been keeping track of the work Arthur was doing, so Eames understood him. It was all going to be okay.

He moved to the side and let Arthur shuffle in.

"You could have mentioned something about that over breakfast when you've come back from the beach."

"I'm doing my job as a point man."

Eames followed Arthur back to the bed, sitting next to him on the edge of it. "Your job as a point man is generally to collect direly important information for our jobs. You are the best, Arthur, but not even you should expect the sun to rise and fall just because you're there. This is going to be one thing we'll have to accept while we're down here."

Arthur leaned against Eames's side. "There's a sunrise and a sunset. I used a silver dollar to put the moon in the sky. I'd do more work on the stars but I don't think I should create actual constellations that we'd recognize from our time in reality- we shouldn't trick ourselves into thinking we're on a specific hemisphere during a specific time of year."

"It’s alright. We can make a few of them up so they'll only reinforce the message that this isn't real. Like a PASIV constellation."

"We'll go to the beach tomorrow and we'll get to work on structures."

Eames frowned. "You'll sleep first. You'll get plenty of sleep, then we'll go out, and it will definitely prove that the sun will rise and fall without you. Now take off your shoes and get in bed already."

"I'm still working on getting the evenings right," Arthur was saying, doing as Eames asked, allowing Eames to give him a nudge or two, helping Arthur to setting into the forger's bed. Eames nodded in response to Arthur's words, pulling the blankets up to Arthur's chin.

"I've seen them, they're lovely."

Arthur grimaced to himself. "Too much purple. Tomorrow I'm setting up the streetlights. And once I'm done with all the other practical things, I want to build ridiculous things. Think of something ridiculous you've never seen in reality and I'll build it here. We'll never lose sight of our reality this way," Arthur closed his eyes and said, "I want a car racing track, Eames."

"I'd love to know how you're going to build all that on the beach, but this is a good start."

Arthur reached out and patted the back of Eames's hand. "I know you're going to try and watch me sleep, and that's why you didn't just walk me back to my room, but seriously, make sure the sun rises."


	3. Chapter 3

"This was the way that Mal and Cobb did their building," Arthur said, molding another block of damp sand into a nearly perfect square. It was the last in a row of six. Arthur was facing away from the beach and looking at the row of brand new buildings that had appeared several blocks away and further inland from their hotel.

As Arthur made a minor adjustment to the block, shaving away some excess sand, that same building in the distance lost something from one of its edges- from this distance it was hard to tell if it was a shutter or a window basket, but whatever it was fell from a decent height to hit the ground, breaking into several pieces.

"And if they didn't survive Limbo very well, why are you doing it?" Eames was watching as Arthur made another building appear out of nothing just by manipulating the sand on the beach. Then he looked up at the sky and noticed that there weren't any clouds.

He pulled a cigarette out of the air, lit it with the lighter he found in his pocket, then took a careful drag. Rather than blow a smoke ring, Eames just exhaled, letting the plume of smoke out in its own kind of cloud. And after he'd finished blowing the smoke, he'd noticed a distinct accumulation of wispy gray clouds in the sky. He did this a few more times, smiling around the cigarette in his mouth and pointing it out to Arthur.

"Nice," the point man said, "let's cross our fingers and hope it doesn't rain."

Then he finally answered Eames's question. "It's easier. I know I can do it without building things out of sand, but there's something nice about making this kind of model and seeing how it looks in the landscape." And then Arthur shrugged. "After the inception, Cobb finally told me a bit more about what happened with Mal here. The totems, how they felt like gods building the world down here, and that train...that was how they both ended up getting out of here. But considering how things worked out afterwards, I didn't think we should try it out ourselves."

As Arthur had been talking, Eames hadn't noticed that his clouds were now changing their shapes. If he looked at it in just the right way, he'd say that it looked a little bit like a train. Eames reach up, hand open, and covered the train-shaped cloud. He made a single brushing motion, and the train-shaped cloud dispersed. He considered his cigarette and wished it out, taking the now unlit cigarette and putting it in his shirt front pocket.

Though Arthur greatly disliked the dream symbolism of the beach, Eames's past experience with him proved that Arthur also really disliked littering.

"So we'll make a pact then," Eames suggested. "We won't engineer each other's deaths. We won't forget our reality, so we won't need to save one another like Cobb did for Mal, though we really don't need to debate on what he saved her from."

They both knew that dead was dead. Cobb may not have intended to incept his wife, tricking her into rightly believing that their version of Limbo wasn't real, but have it bleed over to their reality. Eames didn't have to ask Arthur what he did with his totem, just like Arthur didn't have to ask Eames.

"Agreed."

Eames watched as Arthur began working on his race track, enjoying how Arthur couldn't exactly hide his smile as he worked on the frivolous ridiculous thing that would prove he wasn't in reality. And even though he knew Arthur wasn't really making _sandcastles_ he couldn't help but think of a certain song.

Eames began humming it, and Arthur stopped dead to glare at him.

"I swear to god, if you even _try_ to sing _Sandcastles in the Sand_ , I won't build you the Thousand Word theater."

Eames had thought of it as a joke. What he would like, but obviously never find in reality, would be works of art taking center stage to tell their stories in a series of three act plays. Eames could imagine the androgynous winged figure of Dürer's _Melencolia I_ standing on a stage and acting out the drama of the hits and misses of the creative process. And there were so many ways to take it too.

"I'll stop, I'll stop!"

* * *

The years passed in Limbo, and though Eames asked once or twice, Arthur wouldn't confirm an exact number.

"Has it been two years yet? Three?"

"Thank you for the coffee," Arthur answered, blatantly not answering Eames's question over breakfast.

Eames considered this and tried some of his tea. "You've long since finished the Thousand Word theater. You've finished your insane race track forever ago."

That got a reaction out of Arthur.

"It's not insane!"

"Darling, you have a monster truck."

"So?"

"You also seem to have a penchant for any famous vehicle from movies or television shows."

"Are you honestly telling me that you didn't have fun racing against me in that Aston Martin DB5 from _Goldfinger?"_

"No, I had fun, darling. But I honestly thought that you were having even more fun when you chose a car from Mario Kart. You were so proud of yourself when you manifested that blue shell and took me out when I was about to win!"

"I was in a cartoon go-kart from a video game and used an appropriate power-up item. Your Aston Martin was equipped with every gadget featured in the film, whether or not they'd actually installed it on the set."

"I nearly activated the ejector seat!"

They were silent for a moment. Eames hadn't been hurt. Arthur had hopped out of his ridiculous car and double-checked if Eames was alright, then glanced at both cars to see if there was any lasting damage. The blue shell had left a mark on the Aston Martin, but Arthur was certain he could buff it out.

This type of conversation wasn't unusual for them. Their lives in Limbo were odd and purposely ridiculous so they'd not forget what their true reality was. They reminded each other about their real lives every day, they spoke about past jobs, and they'd talk about themselves. It was probably time for that now.

"We work together. We're the best point man and forger," Arthur stated, no arguing if it was a valid statement or not. They'd gone over it before, of course. "We've known each other for such a long time, and we trust each other."

"But how long have we been down here, Arthur? You can tell me the truth, it’s just that I feel we've been down here for a little longer than building most of the world and two personal features to keep us busy really warrants."

And Arthur, because he was the best, because he'd known Eames for so long and liked him, Arthur finally told Eames the truth.

"According to my Days in Limbo Calendar, we've been down here for roughly five years. Give or take a day."

Eames blinked. "It took us _five_ years to get all of this done? Five years...it felt like nothing!"

Arthur nudged the side of his coffee cup. "I didn't want to worry you, Eames. We've been holding this together so well! You look the same, I look the same, and neither of us has gone crazy. It feels like a success."

Then Arthur offered Eames his upraised hand, quirked an eyebrow, and waited.

Eames sighed. Then he finally high fived Arthur. "I think I can debate your sanity right now, Arthur."


End file.
